big giant circles

Happy bday Doug! I'm going to loop your cavestory remix over and over and over to celebrate!

Talked with Larry about this one a litte--after a couple more listens, I've decided that this is definitely a cool track. But the level of arrangement is not particularly high in comparison to the original, and unfortunately, I think it doesn't quite fit the bill as laid out by our submission standards. Hopefully this isn't a language issue--perhaps MoAbi could add more original stuff, like a longer solo, or something. As is, it's very nearly a mere cover of the source tune. NO

Mix is a little bit muddy - Brian loves him some reverb However, I can't really voice any serious gripes that would come anywhere close to keeping this one out of the clear. Really fantastic job of varying the groove and genre-crossover throughout the track. Very expansive and there's lots of variation from start to finish. Song's just shy of 6 minutes, and I never got bored - always a good and rare quality of longer tracks. I suppose I don't have much else to add except YES (just so all you jdghaters out there know, this is my 3rd YES in a row, but y'all will never know because these mixes are never posted in order.)

Pretty kickass song. Nothing to add on top of Jill and Larry though, my man. Sounds like there's some over-compression issues throughout. Tweak your volume knobs here and there--that's definitely the hard part of the job, and there's not really an easy way to do it other than just keep tweaking and listening, and asking an unbiased 2nd opinion. Pretty brilliant work otherwise. Great arrangement and all that good stuff. Tweak this and resubmit it, or I shall personally see to it that The letters "O" and "A" be removed from the English language. Then you'll really be screwed... ON, TIMBUSER!

Love the horn intro. I think I also heard distortion for the loud hit at :39. Strings are a little on the crappy-sounding side. Aside from that, the track rocks. I like all the horn work. Typically all the movement that's done on the strings has been simplified to a horn melody, and it really works. Choir thing was aight, I guess. Conceptually, it was awesome. In general, the sound of the choir was a little obnoxious, but that's nothing you did wrong--it's just got kind of a whiny-edge to it. I guess that might be something that most people are either going to love or to hate. There's probably not going to much gray area, but there is a little, because I'm close to it in that I don't mind it, but I would probably kill myself if you locked me in a room with that sample for hours on end. Anyway, pretty solid stuff. Good work, per the usual RK. YES

Cool beats. Didn't like the synth lead at :33. The pulse synth thereafter wasn't too bad, initially not the greatest sound - but you did some cool stuff with it. I liked the flanged drums. Choir was unique - not realistic, but fit the song pretty well. Nice transition to just piano, and filtered drums kick back in. This one's got a pretty good level of funk to it, and some happenin' beats and stuff and what not and so on and so forth and etc. I'm-a-gonna-say... YES

PM'd David today. He said he'd see what he could do about the EQ. I'll post an update as soon as he sends it.

I concur with Larry. In all seriousness, this is one of the coolest tracks on the site. Period. If you haven't listened to this yet, do it now without hesitation or excuse. If you have, get your significant other and play it again. If you don't have a significant other, then just go get your mom/sister. When you hear the musical sex that is this remix, you won't care who she is. Seriously.

leaving this original vote in here, though in smaller text to show that it's outdated now. Let me see if I can shed a little more light on what Larry's talking about when things sound like they're in different rooms. For one, the far left and far right guitars are obviously pulling your ears in two different directions. Obviously, this is a pretty common thing, so I'm not saying that's bad. But the attack on the strings is a bit awkward, and it sounds like there's more emphasis on the reverb attached to the sample than the actual sample itself, so it makes the bow attack sound delayed and far away, hence, another room-ish. And then the drums are way out in the front. This mainly due to the overall mix job of the track, which I thought was not as solid as it should be. There's hardly any low end at all--where's the fat bass support? I think that would really help in tying things together as well as thickening up the audio canvas. Guitars are swimming in high end which helps in that they're extremely dirty-grungy, which is appropriate for a Doom remix. But again, should be more bottom end at some point. I really like this mix. Despite my previous paragraph seeming like nothing but criticisms, even. I'm just pointing out flaws that I think could be better. Overall, I'd say this is acutally pretty solid. Luiza is obviously a skilled guitar player--that goes without saying. And David has a knack for creating effective ambience. (I'd still like to hear a *slightly* tweaked version resubmit of your original Chronometrical mix from about a year ago, bro). This is a pretty solid expansion of the source tune, so I'm inclined to vote YES here. However, I think I may see if I can get in touch with David and Luiza after some more J's offer their input, simply to see if we can get them to re EQ the track, maybe balance it out a little more. As is, according to my 3-band-text-equalizer, it sounds like L-- M H------- and I'd like it to sound more like L--- M-- H---- or something. Hope that's clear. I'm not sure whether to call this a NO, RESUB or a CONDITIONAL YES. I'm about to be late for work, and I really do like the track, so I'm going to say YES, conditionally re: EQ

I wouldn't say reverb is WAY over the top, as it helped to sustain a darker mood for the piano. However, it does need to be toned down, and you need to drop the volume of the piano a bit because I heard some crackling early on. That's bad. String sample is pretty terrible. I'm confident you can at least find some better ones on Hammersound or something. Or at the least, Google "Nando Florestan soundfonts". Heck, use some of Darkesword's soundfonts that he hosts. They're better quality than the ones you're using, and they're all free. Sounds like you were automating your own vibrato effect--don't do that on an ensemble sample. It's never going to sound real. Instead, it gives it kind of a cheesy, lo-fi, analog feel. As for your arrangement, it seems really similar to the original song. I'd suggest throwing in a small degree of original ideas to go alongside what you've already laid down here. Definitely a pretty good 1st sub. Got some good potential. It's a pretty song, but the reverb, string samples, and overall level of arrangement need to be adjusted. If you don't care to take a stab at fixing those things, feel free to bring it back and resubmit it. See if you can't get some feedback from the WIP forums first, though. NO

Ouch brass samples. Lots of energy in this one. The biggest problem I see so far is this is a near-cover. Fake lead guitar bugs me a little. Sequencing is pretty good, but the pitch-bends are a little over-the-top. Finally here some interpretation in the solo at 2:18 that wasn't present in the source. But after a few seconds of that, it goes straight back to running along side the original only with better samples, etc. Woah, changeup at 3:30 actually took me by surprise. Good of you to throw that in there. Keychange at 3:52. I dunno. Cool track, and cool source, very fast-paced metal type track. I dig it, and mixing is aight, if not masterfully executed. I dunno. Still, despite the solo, the soft section at 3:30, and the keychange, it's still reeeeeeally similar to the source. I'm leaning more toward a NO at present. I'll hold off officially until after maybe I've discussed it with the other J's. Say Whaaaaat?

dang, that was quick. Umm, you say you changed the string sample, and I overwrote your old version (doh) so now I can't go back and compare. I will say, it's really really really quiet. Otherwise, seems pretty balanced and a little louder, so thanks for addressing that. Would have liked the strings to be louder. Otherwise, very dark and haunting take on Stickerbush done rather well. Cheers. YES (still wish the strings were louder)

Well, I'll just go ahead and bite the bullet. This is still a pretty liberal mix, but despite my adamant objection to the last version, I feel a lot more comfortable after Skryp's breakdown of exactly how the source ties in to the melody. I'll even go so far to say that I was wrong the first time around about how recognizable the melody reinterpretation was. Don't get me wrong, this is still liberal as hell, and still a hair's breadth from going into the red, but it's an awesome track, and I'll go ahead and give the 4th Y here. Funny thing is, Skryp change very very little from his first mix to this one. So it's almost like I'm changing my vote rahter than voting on a new submission. What can I say. Nobody's perfect. Welcome aboard. NO whoops, habit. sorry. YES

Never heard the original submission. Good energy, no production qualms that I can hear. Pretty solid all across the board. Not much else for me to add. 4 Thumbs Up Glib votes. Congratulations, gentlemen. YES (I'd like to see if Dave can find anything quote-worthy for his writeup for this one when he gets around to it.)

Man I hate Ballos. He is a bastard. And those little angel things piss me off equally. It's late, so I'll be straightforward. The drums and the mixdown are what kill the track. Low string intro dragged out a little too long, IMO. But the drums are pretty dull, and the cymbals get shoved to the back every time they crash. It's basically like a 1-2 kick+snare combo. Spend some more time developing the drums. Try to make them a little more complex, rather than just a beat to go alongside the guitars. And tweak the levels. Sounds like there's overcompression to the max AND clipping. Otherwise, not a bad version of the fight with Mr. Magic-Gone-Wile-Yellow-Face with the creepy ghost puppy. NO

pretty simplistic and very rigid. funny thing about me even owning an imac, is that i've maybe used OSX 10-15 times in the past year that i've owned this thing. garageband is a fun program, and the loops are terribly addicting to play around with, as are the software instruments, but it takes some work to get a good, full, rich sound. especially the strings. that's probably the main thing i DONT like about GB. the other stuff is pretty cool--the synth leads and textures are pretty cool. (in garageband, that is). at any rate, the track is way too sparse and there's lots and lots of empty space, for lack of a better way to describe it. otherwise, it is a happy lil' diddy. it just needs some more work and some TLC. NO

Damn. I saw the preview on apple.com/trailers a while ago--and I had since completely forgot about it. I'm definitely up to see it--it looked really cool. Thanks for the reminder.

You may have had it in mind, but up until the piano drop around 1:45 or so, the quality of the sound via your choice of instrumentation etc didn't sound like much of an upgrade from the Genesis sound chip. Lead synth was just a little... obnoxious for the most part. Sorry. Don't know how else to say it. Definitely had some monoglide abuse going on as well. Monoglide is definitely a double-edged sword, and has the same pitfalls that something like reverb has. It's great when used tastefully, but people just go nuts, and it kills a track. Not a bad track, but the foundation and soundscape don't really keep this one afloat in it's current state. Keep at it, don't get discouraged. NO

At first, I was feeling Larry's gripes about the drums not cutting through enough. But then I realized that the track is in 13/8 or some weird time signature, as is the remix. And obviously, there's probably not a lot of 13/8 loops that you can easily slice, so you probably constructed that from scratch, and thus, they may initially sound a little weak, but I heavily appreciate the dificulty of creating a loop for such a weird groove to begin with. So that's awesome. You just scored mad props in the BGC corner, Mr hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. This may be a weak thing to base a vote on, but after that realization, it made everything else about the mix much cooler. The synthetic guitar lead does get a little pushy toward the end of it's appearance, but I liked the cross-panning. I also loved the growling swell that built up to the string drop. Wish the strings had a slightly "wetter" feel to them, but it's still a badass drop. I dunno. The more I listened to this, the more I'd like to see it on the front page. 13/8 FTW (YES)

Dammit, Shariq, update the title threads. <3 Again, since I'm here, I'll pretty much confirm what my comrades have said. Beef up the drums in the mix. Pretty cool metal take on arguably one of the most famous VGM themes of all time. After reading all three replies, there's really nothing left for me to say. NO

I thought Golden Feathers or whatever was covering this theme fore VotL? Well, anyway. I see this has already got 3 NO's, but I'll offer a bit of input as well. Lead doesn't bug me that much, really, but I would have liked to hear a change-up rather than keeping that pretty much throughout. The bridge section was cool--not sure how well it fit with the feel of the rest of the track, but it was cool at any rate. Reminded me of something out the DKC OST. Drums are kinda far back, they could stand to be brought out a bit. I would suggest having a section where either the drums or everything else is dropped for a few bars, and then perhaps building back in progressively. Might help with the length as well, since a few people have brought up the issue of it being under 2 1/2 minutes. Anyway, this is a pretty solid foundation, but I don't think the final product is overshadowed by it's potential to be better still. Don't call it quits on this one yet, I say. Hope you take some of our suggestions to heart. Go for a fairly easy resub.

And, 3 strikes for the "Pwow" lead synth. Texture is ultra flimsy with nothing but the aforementioned synth backed by a sweeping pad. Melody drop with the piano wasn't too fulfilling either. Sounds like there may be a little clipping as well. Gotta fix that. Otherwise, 2:00 into the track, this is still pretty bland. Thin, dry, and again, flimsy. Sorry to sound so critical. But I wouldn't even suggest bothering to tweak it. Scrap it and start over. Use different instruments, and fill out the sound field. Try to put some energy into it. NO

GLIB ATTACK Why say it when Vig has said it already? No but I'll add a few words here. Let me emphasize that this isn't a bad submission. Especially a first sub. But with such a cookie-cutter formula, this style of music, especially in the VGM remixing scene is becoming a little trite. The key to really good techno/trance is to try to keep the song from being so predictable. Throw the listener for a good loop or two. Do something unexpected. Keeps your work from sounding so hackneyed. Again, not a bad first sub. (NO)

heh, when we cut out the length, nobody's going to get the alexhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh bit. anyway. really interesting and uniquely dark take on stinkybush sonata, or whatever. the opening piano reminded me of the caverns or whatever the level was in Symphony of the Night--the part where you fight the dog with 3 heads--been a while since I've played that, so I don't remember. Anyway. Would it have killed you to bump up the master volume a couple notches before your final render? You barely broke 6 DB on the peak meter until the very very end, i think it got a little higher. Oboe is definitely too quiet. Basically just needs some balancing issues, like Vig and Larry have said. Otherwise, I'm highly impressed with the direction you took this one. Resubmit this or else. NO

Quite simply put, your ambitions outreach your abilities. Nice effort, and I'm sure this was fun to play, but you've got to realize that the recording quality is far below OCR standards, and there's more than a few missed notes on the lead. I don't mean to sound like a jerk, especially when I probably can't play electric lead guitar any better, but that's also why you won't hear me submitting a remix where I'm *shredding* the lead melody. Keep at it, practice practice practice and all that, and come back when you're fingers are a little more adept, and you have some better recording equipment. NO